Handcar Regatta

The steadfast showboatin’ hucksters of kinetic whimsy known as Krank-Boom-Clank took Northern California by storm this past weekend of the 16th-17th of May, 2009.

Both the Santa Rosa 115th Annual Luther Burbank Rose Parade and Santa Cruz’s River Arts Festival Kinetic Art Cruz saw the bike mangling lads in full rolling glory upon their famed Hennepin Crawler.

The boys were honored to procure two distinguished awards as well:

• Rose Parade: Best Use of Recycled Materials
• Kinetic Art Cruz: Best Team

See sunny photographs of the merry pageantry on wheels in the following slide show below:

Wired reports that the venerable bicycle turns 90 years old today (in a somewhat loose definition). The Great Handcar Regatta owes much to the Draisine and the many steadfast inventors who built upon each other’s discoveries, leading to the “bikes” we know and love today!

Around February 17, 1818, Baron Karl Christian Ludwig von Drais de Sauerbrun invented the first two-wheeled personal transport vehicle as an alternative to expensive and inconvenient horse travel.

Drais called his patented contraption the Laufmaschine or “running machine” as it had neither pedals nor brakes, forcing riders to use their feet for propulsion and stopping. Flimsy leather shoes of the day and virtually no smooth paved roads ruined any chance of the machine’s popular use.

However, aristocrats found the invention charming enough to buy and race with. Eventually the French, among others, adopted the steadily-improving bicycle, calling it the Draisine, a term that is still used today for human powered railcars.

For a quick tour of the bicycle’s humble beginnings, see the following slideshow from the Institute and Museum of the History of Science: Cycling Through Time

As witnessed at the recent Santa Rosa Bike Coalition’s July 4th Festival, The Great Handcar Regatta Tent of Curiosities and the Krank-Boom-Clank boys on their revisionist wheels of whimsey will be enlivening Heritage Days in sunny Santa Rosa this Saturday August 9th, 2008.

The event takes place in Railroad Square in the old downtown of Santa Rosa from 10am to 4pm. Visit our Directions page.

For a tiny taste of Regatta panache, see the SR Bike Coalition Festival photographs at Flickr:

THIS JUST IN!
The Krank-Boom-Clank bike mangling boys hit New Belgium Brewing’s Tour de Fat on Sat., July 19th. Photos seen at Flickr.

Word has it that the festival was a rollicking good time, replete with a rowdy Chicago-based marching known as Mucca Pazza, the vivacious and verily pink Sprockettes, plus more bands, the helmeted madness of Cyclecide’s rodeo of truly bizarre wheels, and so much ambrosial beer (and yet more delights such as the New Orleans style marching wake for the dying love of cars via a child’s Cadillac Escalade carried upon shoulders on a litter and the scads of costumed bike fanatics in attendance too)!

See everyone’s Flickr shots from the day.

The goodly folks at New Belgium Brewing are continuing their “Tour de Fat” across the U.S.

This Saturday, July 19th, 2008, will find the Tour in splendid Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.

Admission is free!

For those who are lost, New Belgium’s Tour de Fat is a celebration of bicycling first and beer and entertainment second, including an early cross-city ride, a parade of outlandish pedaled contraptions and equally eccentric costumed riders, plus music and artistic performance, and more!

ITEM!
Word has it that our own Krank-Boom-Clank crew will be attending with their perplexing pedal-powered conundrums!

Wander through these other stimulating and progressive projects by New Belgium Brewing and its partners in biking and sustainability:

• Follow Your Folly
  Interesting and inspiring stories of extraordinary people and their passions
• Innovate or Die
  Partner project to create a Machine Contest to stimulate human power transportation designs
• Team Wonder Bike
  Providing biking inspiration to commuters everywhere

UPDATE: Photographs from the sunny day among the costumed folks and the tent of treasures and oddities are available at Flickr.

Bike Sonoma presents The Fifth Annual Bicycle Santa Rosa Fourth of July Festival and Ride on Friday, July 4, 2008 from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at Juilliard Park. The Council Member Bike Ride will begin at 9:00 a.m. This event is free to all.

ITEM! The thoroughly irrepressible Krank-Boom-Clank will be causing a stir upon their manifold conveyances of pedaling whimsey for all to witness! Learn more about The Great Handcar Regatta too at our well appointed stripey tent of curious treasures and fiendish oddities!

The festival features

• a bike decorating contest and parade for kids
• a slow bike race
• a flat tire changing contest
• water balloon toss
• a jump house
• various art activities
• drawings for prizes and more
• SCBC will provide free valet bike parking
• win a Cool Cruiser from the BikePeddler in the Bicycle Santa Rosa Bike Raffle!

Call (707) 545-0153 or email info@BikeSonoma.org for more information.

Rideable Bicycle Replicas in Alameda, CA, have been putting “High Wheelers” into high gear since 1973.

In addition to antique replicas of “Hi-Wheelers”, or “Penny Farthing” and “Bone Shaker” bikes as they have been called, Rideable Bicycle Replicas builds Pedicabs, both foot and hand-powered recumbents, tricycles, multi-rider surreys, and tandems.

As their Aetherweb site claims, “The bikes are very popular at festivals, parades, and shows. If you see high wheelers on TV or in films, they are more than likely manufactured by us here at Rideable Bicycle Replicas.”

We wish Rideable Bicycle Replicas many more happy years of high wheeling fun indeed! Oh my!

ITEM!
Perhaps a few of the said hi-wheelers will be witnessed in the upcoming “Great Race of London Pennyfarthing / Hi-Wheel Cycle Race” Tally Ho!

The Great West End and Railroad Square Handcar Regatta is proud to procure Free Secure Bicycle Parking!

Do not pilot your noisome motor carriage and indulge a headache amidst traffic and a limitless pursuit of parking space. Instead, dear reader and ambitious saver of precious resources, ride your “BIKE”!

We are providing a safe and secure setting for you to leave your bicycle or Pennyfarthing Hi-Wheeler at our grand event, free of charge!

The noble Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition, whose lofty goal it is to promote the bicycle as transportation and recreation, will be providing free valet bicycle parking.

So, good people of Santa Rosa, retreat from said motor carriages and debark out into the air, and relish this great event on two pedal-power wheels instead of four!

This just in from the Aetherwebs:

“Great Race of London Pennyfarthing / Hi-Wheel Cycle Race”

Albany, CA, July 20, 2008 (near Berkeley)

From another list, and of interest. Berkeley is just across the bay from San Francisco.

“TALLY-HO!”

Is it true?

Do mine eyes deceive me?

YES! IT IS TRUE!

This summer…Those masters of mayhem from “The Great Race of London”, Major Jonas Junquebucket and Captain Thaddeus “Tadger” Thicketristle, have reunited and shall risk life and limb once more in a brand new adventure!

The city of Albany (near Berkeley) will be holding a Pennyfarthing/HiWheel cycle race. Tadger and Jonas have been invited to join in the race and represent to good citizens of London!

If you happen to be in the area of Albany on July 20th…and if your Victorian clothing is just bursting out of your closet…please come and support us and make “big noise” in the name of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria – “God save The Queen!”

See you there…and wish us jolly good luck!

TALLY-HO!